


Pretty Hard Kick

by MadamRogers



Category: The Walking Dead
Genre: Jaaron!, M/M, Platonic Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 03:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamRogers/pseuds/MadamRogers
Summary: Aaron gives you a pretty hard kick during training and has to get you back to Hilltop with Jesus. What happens then...?





	Pretty Hard Kick

**Author's Note:**

> For winter celebration on Tumblr.
> 
> Prompts used:
> 
> 25\. ”I think we’re stuck here for a while”
> 
> 40\. ”Don’t laugh at my majestic sweater”
> 
> 48\. ”I didn’t want you to be alone”
> 
> 60\. Someone comes over as a friend but leaves as a loved one

You weren’t as blind as you sometimes let people think. You had seen very clearly how they were looking at each other, what it meant that Jesus left Hilltop. Nowadays he asked you to join him, he thought it’d be good for you to train with someone whose skills were quite similar to yours. So, you and Aaron spent the days punching and kicking each other while Jesus watched and guided you.

Before leaving Alexandria to live in Hilltop, you had befriended with Jesus. Now he was one of the closest friends you had ever had and you didn’t lie when you said that he knew you so well. So well it occasionally made you a bit angry. But more than that, it made you feel happy and safe; he was the first one to know if something was wrong, protecting you, agreeing with you, someone you could tell everything to… You had started to think that maybe you were somehow connected. It felt so natural to be his friend, to be with him.

Even so natural that you wore the ugliest Christmas sweater you had found during one scavenging trip without telling anyone. Thanks to the lord for big backpacks…

He had been a bit down for days. You knew it was because of all the stress he felt, how he thought he wasn’t supposed to be the leader. You had tried everything to cheer him up, but he was so busy that the only time you could do that was either during meals or in the evenings when he came to you and had this late night talk with you. Those late night talks were already a tradition. Something you appreciated. Loved, actually. He was always encouraging you, not matter what. He wrapped his arms around you and told you would make it. That everything was still okay, that no matter what, he was there for and with you.

And every time you believed him. Every time it felt just as safe in his embrace.

But when he was quieter than usual, still saying those words he always did but still distant, you decided you had to do something.

So, you wore the sweater to make him laugh. You missed his laughter. And because you knew Aaron would be there, since you were supposed to train again, it was even more perfect. He had someone to laugh with.

Maybe finally… he’d find the happiness he deserved.

You weren’t going to try to push. You’d let the chemistry, the situation do its magic. As Jesus’ friend you weren’t going to push Aaron against him and see what happened, that would’ve been mean. He wasn’t one of those who worked like that. He believed in chemistry, mutual understanding. You were going to let it happen if it was going to.

It started as tittering but it was harder and harder for him to refrain a laugh. He let it out just by the gates of Hilltop when he met you and covered his face with his right hand. ”Y/N, what on earth are you wearing?”

You smiled proudly, even though you knew the sweater was ugly. ”Don’t laugh at my majestic sweater,” you said, changing your voice a bit.

He was chuckling at you, walked closer and wrapped his arm around you. ”No, I’m not laughing. I’m saving you from other people’s laughs.”

You made a sound like a hurt puppy. ”But Paul, they were already laughing at me,” you sounded like a small child this time. You got out of the gates (pretty sure you were still able to hear giggles) and he let go of you, trusting you’d follow him.

You were one of the only people still calling him Paul sometimes. He felt like people might have forgotten his name really wasn’t Jesus. Technically. He liked this habit of yours, it made him feel warm inside. He stood there for a while, chuckling from the depths of his chest.

”Why am I your friend exactly?”

Your mouth fell open. You knew he was joking, but you played along. ”Hey! The real question is, why am I your friend? Hmm?”

He came to turn you around and started to push you towards the woods, held his hand between your shoulder blades. Listening to your giggles, he still pushed you and found himself smiling.

You were so silly he couldn’t help but love you.

It was braver than before, but you were going to meet closer to Hilltop than before. Aaron had told he’d be out of Alexandria for days this time, so training closer to Hilltop wasn’t hard. You had told him the place, and he promised the two of you he’d be there.

Just like Jesus, Aaron was one of your closest friends. You had been one of Rick’s group and met Aaron as he got you inside Alexandria’s tall walls. A lot had happened since that day. You had lost many, found many. Those days were far back. The world had changed a lot.

He was there before you two. Jesus was no longer pushing you, he had stopped when you stopped giggling. Greetings were always warm hugs and pats on the shoulders, and these moments with the two of them made you happier than anything back in Hilltop.

You were even happier when Aaron punched and kicked you. Not literally, of course, but he sometimes hit pretty hard. So did you; you had more than once ran to him to make sure he was fine when he fell down, holding his nose and groaned. Usually he was just fine. He thought it was funny, playing around. Jesus had learned to read his body language and was able to tell when he was acting. You tried to learn the same skill.

No matter how skilled you two already were, you couldn’t hold it against Jesus for too long. Not even together. He was quickly having the upper hand. Aaron got distracted by your ugly sweater, was still laughing at it and not only laughing, he even told it was the best he had ever seen.

You were even more proud of it at that moment.

You were sure it’d scare walkers away, you wouldn’t have to kill them.

But Aaron was dangerous when he got distracted. Instead of kicking Jesus, he kicked you. Hard, really hard this time.

He screamed louder than you when you fell on the grass, holding your leg. Jesus was just as quickly reacting to what happened.

Not only did Aaron kick you, but in his panic he almost hit your face with his metal hand. Jesus was between you and the hand quickly and stopped him.

”Y/N, are you okay?” he asked after turning from Aaron to you.

”Yeah… Yeah, I am…” You knew that acting brave wasn’t even more necessary than screaming would have been embarrassing.

”Are you sure? It was a pretty hard kick,” Aaron frowned in discomfort but didn’t dare to touch you, as if he was afraid he’d make everything worse. He was usually pretty confident, grown to be even more during these past few years, but moments like this always made him feel so bad that he panicked easily.

But luckily Jesus was calm like a rock. He placed his hand against your shoulder as you dropped yourself properly on the grass. ”Can you walk?”

You were able to feel how your leg hurt. It probably wasn’t broken, but Aaron was right, the kick had been hard.

”I think we’re stuck here for a while,” you said, eyes watering when Jesus touched your leg. It was an automatic reaction your body decided was the best for the moment. Jesus looked sorry and tried to smile to you soothingly.

You could hear that Aaron was swallowing and taking a deep breath.

”I’m very sorry, Y/N…”

You turned to face him and saw how he was still frowning and looked so sorry, blinking and biting the inside of his lower lip.

”Hey,” you reached for his hand with your own, ”you didn’t break me. It’s just a leg. I’m lucky it was you and not a walker.”

Aaron sighed, but let you have his hand.

Jesus looked at him quickly but his attention was then back at you, your leg he was examining. You tried not to hiss in pain.

”We should not stay here, it’ll be dark in a few hours,” he said, setting your leg down; not on the ground but on his own lap as he sat down on the grass. ”We’ll get you back to Hilltop, Y/N.”

”I’ll help,” Aaron said immediately, like he wasn’t even thinking about going back to Alexandria after this.

Both you and Jesus turned to look at him, but Jesus was the one talking.

”Are you sure? You could go -”

”No, I can’t. Couldn’t live with myself if I left now,” during the last sentence he turned to Jesus from you and bit the inside of his lip again.

Jesus nodded. ”Okay…” He looked at Aaron and then turned to you, this time setting your leg down on the grass. You hissed. ”How bad is it?”

”I think it’s not broken… Maybe just twisted or something…” You looked up at him. Wasn’t it supposed to be you asking him how bad it was? But you knew he was asking about the pain and not the condition of your leg.

”No, you’re right, it’s not broken. You didn’t kick that hard,” Jesus turned to Aaron to ease his mind, but Aaron got out a relieved sound and nothing more.

Jesus stood up and gave Aaron’s shoulder a pat as if to get him up as well. You sat up and let them help you, with standing at first and then with walking.

”Did you walk all the way down here?” Jesus asked Aaron, looking past you to see him.

”No, I have a horse. Y/N can ride and we’ll walk,” he suggested.

”Sounds good,” Jesus was left alone to hold you up. You were able to stand on your own and turned to look at him.

”This is embarrassing…”

He breathed out and brushed a stubborn lock of hair from in front of your eyes. ”Embarrassing? Things like this happen to better ones too. Don’t feel embarrassed. He didn’t mean any harm.”

”I know. Thank you.”

”Save the thanks until we have gotten your leg properly checked. I will sit with you for a long while tonight.”

You almost thanked him again, but knew he had set a trap and just pressed your head on his shoulder. He hummed and stroked your hair a little.

Aaron’s horse was brown and very nice, it understood your pain and didn’t even try to escape when you struggled with getting on the saddle. With Jesus’ help it was a bit easier. Aaron walked the horse, and Jesus walked beside him, even though they both knew just well that you would’ve been fine on your own. But it was nice. You leaned down, placed your head against the horse’s neck and looked down at the men, closing your eyes.

They thought you fell asleep. Partly you were, but you still heard them talking about friends, home, boyfriends… Aaron talked about loosing Eric. And somehow you felt this was the situation doing its magic.

You actually thanked Aaron for kicking you.

You were back at Hilltop faster than you thought you’d be, the gates opened, and you opened your eyes. Aaron helped you down, but you got stubborn.

”Y/N, the infirmary would be the best place - ”

You cut Jesus’ sentence before he even started it properly. ”No, I want my own bed. Please, Jesus…”

”How about you take Y/N back to the house, and I’ll get Enid? I’ll be on my way back to Alexandria after that, so…”

”Aaron, don’t be a fool!” You breathed out. ”Of course you’ll stay. You won’t get far before dark and this is my fault you even had to come here.”

”Technically, it was my fault…”

”Aaron, stop playing wise. I don’t want you to be alone. And I won’t let you be alone. There’s room for you too. We can get Enid there later, I’m not dying.”

It took a few seconds full of staring, but Aaron eventually gave in. He gave his horse to Tara, who was more than happy and surprised to see him and promised to go and get Enid, and helped Jesus to get you back to the house.

”I really like your sweater, Y/N,” Aaron said as you walked.

Jesus laughed as if he had remembered the ugly piece of clothing again. You felt him gazing at you, your worn out sweater that had probably once had a smiling reindeer on it.

”Oh, shut up,” you hit Aaron with your hand you held around him.

The stairs felt endless, but the boys carefully set you down on the couch after what felt like minutes full of frustrating torture.

”Do you need anything? Enid will probably bring painkillers, but anything else?” Jesus asked as he crouched next to the couch by your face.

It was an instinctive reaction, but your hand found his cheek. He leaned against it and smiled to you.

You took a quick glance at Aaron to see where he was. He probably wouldn’t hear you if you whispered, so you took the risk.

”I didn’t want you to be alone, either, Jesus.”

”I’m not alone. And I’m not leaving you alone,” he said with similar, whispering voice.

You shook your head. ”I didn’t mean it like that. What we have is special, but you deserve happiness. And I know you know that deep inside… you want it. You want him. I saw how you looked at each other. I… I heard what you talked about.”

For a second, he looked almost startled. But he knew he couldn’t hide anything from you, so he looked down at the floor and then up at your eyes again. But you were smiling.

”Go, talk to him. I can wait for Enid by myself. Go,” you gave him a smile when he got up, squeezed your shoulder and left you alone. You bit down on your lip as you looked at him for as long as you could until he disappeared.

That night you had probably the best talks ever. Your leg wasn’t broken, Enid had bandaged it, and you were curled up on the couch with your boys, the two people you loved the most in the world. And they loved you.

Aaron left the next morning. You heard a promise of coming back and seeing each other soon when he was saying his goodbyes to Jesus. He had already hugged you a small while back.

You tried to sit up to be more comfortable, but your gaze landed on them. You felt a sudden warmth in your chest.

You saw a quick but meaningful kiss, a bit shy but still very sure.

And Jesus wasn’t feeling down when he had gotten someone like Aaron and you gave him a reason to stay out of the leader business for a while. Not that you were needy, but you acted like your leg was hurting more than it actually was and you wouldn’t be fine on your own when someone came to ask for Jesus. So he had to tell them he had to take care of you. You heard more of his laughter than in weeks, and he thanked you for pushing him.

You had done it after all. Even when you didn’t mean to.


End file.
